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Cannot seem to have a fish survive more than a week

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I am having alot of trouble keeping anything alive in my saltwater tank. My setup is as follows: 55 gallon tank with crushed coral substrate, approx 25lbs of cured live rock, an aquaclear 70 hang on back filter with just mechanical filter in it, and a powerhead aimed at live rock for more movement and bio filtration. I have a marine light which is on about 9 hours a day. Through my whole issue my water parameters have been: PH 7.8, Ammonia 0 nitrites 0 and nitrates 10ppm or less, salinity 1.024 and temperature is 78 deg.

I know i need to eventually get a protein skimmer however i have not had more than two fish both under an inch in length in my tank at the same time so there isnt really to much of a bio load (live rock is probably biggest load)

My first two fish were both ociallaris clowns and one only survived 2 days and the other started showing signs of excessive slim and was going white, eventually died after 5 days. I researched this and determined it may be brooklynella disease. So i left the tank fishless for 4 weeks after this to allow parasite to die. After 4 weeks i put a bangaii cardinal in and he seemed to be doing ok for a week so i placed another bangaii cardinal in and within 3 days both were dead. I started getting sick of wasting money so my newest addition has been a little cheap damsel fish and two hermit crabs. they have been in the tank for 3 days and now the damsel is at the bottom not looking to good.

I have talked to lfs and they do not know what the problem is.

The only other note is that the damsel seemed to be breathing heavy the whole time, i was wondering if it was getting enough o2. I do not have an airstone but i have lots of surface turbulance with my filter and powerhead.

Also, the symptoms do sound a lot like marine ich. In the early stages, it can look a lot like brooklynella. Once ich is in your tank, it can stay there, dormant for as long as 3 months. During that period of time, other fish can become infected which can also start the whole cycle over again. The below link may help

If you take your time to do the research FIRST, you can successfully set-up and keep ANY type of aquarium with ease."Not using a quarantine tank is like playing Russian roulette. Nobody wins the game, some people just get to play longer than others." - Anthony CalfoFishless CycleCycling with FishMarine Aquarium Info [URL="http://saltwater.aquaticcommunity.com/"]

Just to answer a few questions. I feed them frozen brine shrimp. Besides the one clownfish there have been no visible signs of disease. I originally fille the tank with conditioned tap water and now do my water changes with RO water

How are you acclimating your fish into your tank? Not acclimating properly good lead to the quick deaths from stress. And how long has your tank been setup? False readings on your test kits are also possible.

Unless your fish are showing signs of ich before you buy them, ich generally will not kill a fish in 5 days or less.

Your salinity level is at 1.024 which is a bit higher than most shops run at. Most distributors and shops run between 1.019 and 1.021. Check to see what your local shop runs at. Evaporation can cause the salinity to increase. Just because you have live rock does not mean that the live rock will create a totally balanced system. The one weakness of live rock is that it is unable to process metabolized proteinaceous wastes. Quality live rock will have a heavy bio load of life that creates protein wastes. Protein wastes in the water occupy space in the matrix of the water molecules capacity to hold free oxygen. Coupled with a slightly higher salinity level a protein load and a higher salt level lower the waters capacity to hold free oxygen in the water. Combine this with temperature as another factor and your tank would be suffering from a low readily dissolved oxygen level which slowly kills the fish causing the listlessness and discoloration issues which you have seen. This could also explain why upon adding a second fish the two both perished. Keep in mind that the organisms and bio in the live rock are considered life load and consume oxygen. If your shop can do a redox test on your water this may show up in that test. You would want to transport this in a vial or container with no air so as to not influence the results. A quality skimmer would solve this in my opinion.

I acclimate them by placing bag in my water same as my freshwater fish so the temps equalize and I drip in my water into the bag using a airline with a knot tied in it. I have my own test kit and I got Lfs to test so it's not a failed test unless my salinity tester is wrong. I was thinking lack of dissolved o2 as well but wouldn't the fish go to surface of water to try to breathe? Also would an airstone help this as its cheaper than protien skimmer

If you have very good surface agitation, a bubbler will not add much more O2 to the water than what you are already getting. Skimmers can add more O2 to the water based on how they mix air in the water required to separate out the proteins from the water. I would still consider this option as soon as it is practical for you.

I do not think the way you acclimated your fish would have lead to losses many days after you acclimated them.

I would suggest to keep your salinity between 1.025 and 1.027. Natural sea water has a salinity of 1.027. The closer you are to that, the more stable your other water parameters will become. IMO, the biggest benefit to a lower salinity is that it can help to fight of certain parasites, but it can be hard on your fish.

Keep an eye on your fish for signs of ich and flukes. Those are the two most common sicknesses in marine fish in the hobby and the most difficult to recognize in time as well. Keep in mind, you can have ick in the tank and lose fish to it without ever have any visible white spots on the fish. The link I posted earlier along with the reference material within that link can explain it all a lot better than I can

If you take your time to do the research FIRST, you can successfully set-up and keep ANY type of aquarium with ease."Not using a quarantine tank is like playing Russian roulette. Nobody wins the game, some people just get to play longer than others." - Anthony CalfoFishless CycleCycling with FishMarine Aquarium Info [URL="http://saltwater.aquaticcommunity.com/"]

It is unlikely that crabs can transfer ich. If you have really good surface agitation, you should have good levels of O2.

If you are worried or feel you do not have enough agitation at the surface, add another powerhead 4 inches (or so) below the waterline and point it up towards the top of the tank to increase your agitation of the water which will increase the O2 levels.

If you take your time to do the research FIRST, you can successfully set-up and keep ANY type of aquarium with ease."Not using a quarantine tank is like playing Russian roulette. Nobody wins the game, some people just get to play longer than others." - Anthony CalfoFishless CycleCycling with FishMarine Aquarium Info [URL="http://saltwater.aquaticcommunity.com/"]